After accidentally causing the death of his alcoholic mother, nine-year-old Icare is accompanied by kind policeman Raymond to the Fontaines foster-care centre. He at first finds it difficult to fit in, and is desperately homesick: all he has from his mother is an empty beer can and the nickname she gave to him, “Courgette”. He soon learns that the other children in the home have endured similarly traumatic circumstances. With the help of the other kids at the centre – and the gentle-hearted Raymond – Courgette begins rebuilding his life and comes to find comfort and acceptance in his new home.

Before directing his first feature film, My Life as a Courgette, Claude Barras directed several short films including The Genie in a Ravioli Can, which received numerous awards in film festivals around the world. Claude Barras’s unique connection with childhood transcends time and age differences; he has the rare gift of being able to make you laugh and cry at the same time. His stories are filled with realism and fantasy, humor and poetry. He was the impetus for adapting Gilles Paris’s Autobiography of a Courgette into a stop-motion animation film.